Maryandra enjoyed her last week in Hachioji, especially children's English conversation class!
Then she got her transfer notice, and was in Sagamihara by Thursday!

 Here is Maryandra and her new companion, Sister Evans!

They enjoyed some "pirikura" photos, which are photos that enlarge your eyes and that you can add stickers to!  They are with the sisters from Tama in this photo! Here are a few excerpts from Maryandra about her new area:

Thursday:

Yesterday was the hardest day of my mission. I had to say goodbye to
many friends!  I cried so much after saying goodbye to one sister, and 

gave her a ctr ring. One of our favorite investigators, came to the church 

with her husband and little girl, to say goodbye. She gave us each a 

photo book, and a pair of chopsticks,
and a cute handkerchief. When she started crying I just wanted to die.
I didn't want to leave Hachioji! It was so hard. Brown Shimai and I
stayed up till after midnight just talking about the experiences we'd
shared there. I'm really going to miss it.  I'm really going to miss 

brown Shimai as well. If she goes to
BYU Provo, feel free to meet her sometimes. She's awesome!
But I can tell that this transfer will be good. Sister Evans seems
like a great person, and I have heard only good about her, so this
should be great! But I am anxiously looking forward to Stake
Conference this weekend, when I will get to see many of my Hachioji
friends once more, and then to June 29th, our friend's  BAPTISM DATE! I
really am so glad she moved her date up from Christmas! I will do
everything in my power to go there and support her, because she asked
me to come, and I know it would help her to at least see me there. I
don't know why, but I just feel like it would be a good thing if I
went. Brown Shimai is going to try to go too, if she can. Well, time
for language study! See you later!
Okay, so now time for a few more details. This morning, funakura
Shimai and I left at 6:40 am to get to the eki by 6:55. Only a few
minutes later, our respective companions arrived, and we made the
separation. I rode for about ten minutes with sister Evans to the
sagamihara eki. It's lucky that I just moved next door, basically. It
would have been harder if I had moved far away. But anyway, I at least
feel relatively comfortable here. I know that I will have a lot of
good experiences here. But please, when you come here, can we go to
Hachioji, and you can meet all my friends!
Friday:
Well, the first day was actually really fun. I met a lot of new
people, and learned of even more. And I met my new district. There are
only six of us, like there were in the beginning in Hachioji.(there
are ten there Now. O.O) also, I received an early birthday package
from the Spriggs! I really appreciate it! They are so nice! I loved
it!

Sunday:
I'm pretty sure there was a bit of an earthquake this morning, but
it's kind of hard to tell since we live on the first floor, and this
apartment is way more solid than the one in Hachioji. But I think I
felt one! Anyway, the Sunday session of stake conference is today! I'm
sure it'll be fun!
Yes! I was right! It was the best! I even got to see my friends again!
 It was awesome! And we saw a broadcast all the way from
Salt Lake City! Too bad it rained, though...





Monday:
Right now, we are in Seminary, and I am surprised by how many people
are here! It's about five times as many as who attended in Hachioji.
Later, for pday, we plan to go shopping in Tama with the Tama sisters,
Sister Wells and Sister Hapbibor. Well, it's early, but I hope you guys
enjoy this week!
Love,
Sissy

And here's the Fuji fan I got today at Daiso, the 100 yen shop! 
Daiso is the best!

Maryandra will be transferring to an area called Sagamihara, and sent a very short e-mail, probably because she is busy getting ready to that transfer! Here she is with her companion and the other sister's in their apartment!  They are at a place called Sweets Paradise!  Here is an excerpt from her letter to her dad for Father's Day:

I received my transfer call today. I will be going to the sagamihara
area. My new companion is Evans Shimai. I met her once before, and I
think I will like her. I'm sad and kind of nervous, but it am excited at the
same time, and I want to do a good job.

Here's an excerpt from her tiny letter to her mother:

I think that for the most part, we won't be getting a lot more rain this month, and next month is supposed to be broiling! Yuck!  Evans Shimai is transfer 8 or so, so she will be senior companion. Actually, half he district is transferring! Brown Shimai is going to Kanazawa, and Hurlbut and funakura shimaitachi are staying here.  It seems that everyone is changing. We all needed a change. I will be transferring on Thursday morning! It's a good hing thy Sagamihara is a close area. Love you!

Sissy

Hopefully we'll have more news next week!

Maryandra is trying to survive the rainy season this week!  Here are a few excerpts!

Oh boy, has today been interesting! Rainy season is here all right, unless this is just a precursor. If so, I hate to think what the real rainy season will be like!

Also, I am happy to announce that our friend has a desire to get baptized! She said yes to the soft commitment ( if you don't know what that is, ask and I'll explain next week.) and it was amazing! We just need to help her keep that desire now! She is amazing!

Guess what today is? More rain. And also, we have a two zone meeting for Facebook rollout! Yay! I will be able to see at least one of my MTC friends again, New Zealand brown Shimai! Woohoo! President Wada himself will be coming, and the Assistants....

Well, it was a fun Facebook training meeting! Yay! After that, we proceeded to go housing in the pouring rain. I swear, Link must have played the rain song about a thousand times today and then lost his ocarina! It's bizarre how steadily it rains here! It's been going since last night, and I hear that there won't be a real break in the rain until the 14th of this month O.o! Whoa! So, pretty much, streeting is out. Looks like housing all day, every day from here till the 14th! Well, at least no one has gotten sick in our apartment. That would be pretty bad...

Or, perhaps the reason the rain has gotten worse is that it's actually Curtis (Maryandra's brother) who's gotten so good at the ocarina that he affects the weather conditions on the other side of the planet. If that's the case, I wanna hear it! If only that were possible. But yeah, today's been pretty.... Wet. I've never been so soaked up to my knees in a skirt, unless it was back in February and I just forgot about it. But man, it was gross. And somehow, these flower blossoms got into my shoes, and now I have these black spots on my feet were they either rubbed off their colors or they burst or something. And they don't want to come off all the way. It looks like I have a skin disease:/ But that's okay.

Saturday:

Still raining. And that means more housing. I guess that's a good thing, because we get to explore the area more. But I just really wish it wasn't raining! On the plus side, it always reminds me of either Totoro, or Spirited Away, or any other ghibli movie that has a lot of rain in it. Anyway, we will just... Do dendo stuff, I guess, as soon as lunch is finished.

... Well, it's still raining. I'll probably say that a lot over the next month or two. But hey, at least we talked to about 14 people today, so that's good. Lots of old people were home. Anyway, I don't know what else to say at this point. This week has been pretty slow. Let's hope something fun happens tomorrow!

Monday:

Actually, yesterday was pretty uneventful, except that, for a few glorious hours, it stopped raining! Woohoo! 

In Maryandra's e-mail of June 2, 2014, she was happy about a new journal she'd just bought!  If you know Maryandra, you can appreciate her excitement!  Here a few excerpt about other things:

We had a temple pday, so that's why I couldn't send you
any emails on Monday, and that's why it took so long for me to send
the last email. So, what happened was that we had a mini emergency
transfer. Literally no sooner did we leave the station from coming
back from the temple, expecting to enjoy the rest of our pday, than we
got a call from none other than President Wada. He told us that
another nihonjin sister had become really sick and needed a nihonjin
to look after her in kichijouji while he and sister Wada went to the
mission president training conference located in the other Tokyo
mission somewhere. They will be gone for probably 4 or 5 days.

Then Maryandra proceeded to have a rough week because she missed her Japanese companion, Sister Funakura. But all returned to almost normal by the weekend. Here's a little more:

So, today is fast Sunday, which means we are all going to be very
thirsty today, because it is hot outside, and only one room in our
apartment as AC, and the rest of he apartment, literally as soon as
you walk through the doorway, is hot and almost muggy. Blech! But I
think we'll be okay when we get to the church. The temperature today
is probably close to thirty degrees Celsius, but I don't know hat that
means in Fahrenheit. I'll give you an update when I can actually look
at the weather app, which won't be until I get internet at the church.

I can finally take a much needed breath and relax. Everything
is going to be fine! It feels like all this took a whole lot more than
one week to go through, but it will seem really short, especially to
you guys, since it's all in one email. But it feels like weeks, if not
months, have passed since that day exactly one week ago. I can't tell
you how tired I am. But it's been a good learning experience. I just
need to learn to trust in The Lord. Everything will always turn out
for the best, just give it time. But I'm so very tired. At least
things turned out all right, all just in time to welcome the incoming
typhoon season. I hear that's supposed to be pretty interesting.

So, this family

in the ward invites the missionaries and their investigators over for
dinner and family home evening every fast Sunday, and so we went
there, ate, played a game, did a lesson, and played, you'll never
guess what... OCTPUS 8!!! Only of course, it was in Japanese, so it
was called tako hachi. But it was a really fun game, especially when

elder sawyer couldn't remember what he was supposed to say when it was
his turn, so he yelled NIHANA!!! really loudly with this big awkward
face, and predictably was one of the first people to get out. But it
was hilarious, I can't even describe how much it made us laugh! Well,
anyway, I think that's it for today. Bye!

Maryandra had Temple P-day, so her e-mail was late, and she didn't send any photos, so here is the Tokyo Temple!  She had a long, hard week, highlighted by the start of monsoon season and a 2 mission conference with Elder Quentin L. Cook! Here are some excerpts:

Well, brown shimai's famous last words of the day yesterday were "it's gonna get a whole lot hotter" and no sooner did we all believe her than it started raining cats and dogs, all night. It's now about 6:40 in the morning, and my once near-dry laundry now looks as if it just came out of the washing machine again :/ Oh well. It'll just have to "hang out" inside for a little bit. :) but the rain is a concern though. We had about four or five investigators and potential investigators set to come to this relief society cooking party, but if the rain continues until 10:00, they might not come, which is really sad. Everything looked just fine yesterday. Well, we'll just have to pray our hearts out for some miracle to happen or something. I'll let you know the results later today...okay, so we had three people show up! Not a bad turn out! Things should be okay now. I think it's still raining outside, but maybe not as bad as before.

And on the weekend:

So, it was our mission and the other Tokyo mission. It was pretty cool! I got a lot of good things from it, and if I have time later, maybe I'll share some of them, mostly in quote form, probably. But it was really cool!

Oh, but before io, I will tell you about my moment of panic. While I was at the mtc, my district heard about one time an apostle came to speak there before, and when he shook hands with the missionaries, all he said to some of them as soon as he shook their hands were "go home," because he could tell they weren't there for the right reasons. And I had a temporary phobia of " what if I get told to go home by an apostle! Sure, I have days when I want to go home, but that doesn't mean that I actually want to!" It was an unnecessary paranoia, thankfully, and it was a quick, painless procedure type thing. I'll tell you though, that was the first time when I looked forward to an opportunity like that with something besides excitement. Man, what's wrong with me? I worry too much.

There are times when, as a mother, I realize that my daughter is an awful lot like me! Here is another interesting excerpt:

We tried once again, unsuccessfully, to find hat less active member I mentioned yesterday, and it was really discouraging . . . We found exactly where it was supposed to be, but we couldn't find it. It's like it disappeared. I mean, where could a whole house go? It's like in Harry potter where they could hide houses and other places, and only he secret keeper could tell where it is. It's frustrating. But my amazing companion gave out another Book of Mormon! She is the hardest working person I have ever met. I feel bad that she's stuck with poky, lazy old me. Really, that's what I am. I don't feel bad for me, because that's how I've always been, and I'm content with that, but I feel bad for all the people who have to put up with it, so I'm trying to go a little faster, and talk more. I guess I get distracted by all the scenery and stuff, because it's so pretty here in Japan, right now!  

Maryandra is very critical of herself, but you can tell that she loves where she is right now!

 Maryandra had a good view of Mt. Fuji while climbing Mt. Takao!

This is the view from Maryandra's new apartment veranda!
Here are excerpts from Maryandra's last 3 or 4 page letter:

Brown Shimai just made the Most amazing discovery! Guess what we can see from our apartment's veranda? FUJI SAAAAAAAN! I can't believe how lucky we are! And it looks way close, too! Too bad most of it is blocked by other apartments, though. But we can see the white top, in surprisingly clear detail. I'll send a picture sometime, I promise!

But guess what else? We can see it WAAAAAAAAAY better from the top of takao San! From the top of takao, we saw the entire white section of Fuji San, in perfect clarity, and it wasn't even that hard to get there! It took maybe 4 hours round trip, and I don't even really feel that tired, although everyone else has been taking a nap. I'm really the only one with any energy right now. I'll send you pictures of Fuji San from the top of Takao San instead of from our apartment. I finally have a suggestion for what we can do when you come back here, or rather a suggestion of one of the many things we can do. We should try to climb takao San if you're all feeling up to it! It's waaaaaay easier than jinbo San was, and all the way up, the path is paved and everything, with tons of fun shrines and shops scattered along the way! It was the coolest! And there was a temple up there too that looked really cool, but I didn't get to get a good look or anything. But it was way colorful.

Here's another excerpt:

I had a bit of an experience like the one Elder Holland mentioned in his conference talk, only I didn't get food spit all over me. However, this man took a flier from me, and as soon as he saw it was from our church and he read my name tag, he started hard core bashing the church. He said a bunch of trash about how because we aren't catholic or Protestant, we're not really Christians, and we're bad people, and a lot of other really rude things. He spoke so fast I couldn't understand most of what he said, and when I tried to explain it, he would interrupt me and say things like " oh, see? You don't know your churches history, do you? That proves your church is fake!" I calmly tried to explain to him that I had only been here for three months, yes I did know my church's history, and the reason I couldn't say much was because I couldn't understand him, and I wasn't the best at Japanese. He waved his hand dismissively and said in English " well, in Japan, you must speak Japanese." Then he walked off, not even deigning to hand back the flier. I can tell you, I was tempted like that other sister to just grab that fat, sweaty business man and say something explosive and shake him really hard, and maybe hit him if I got the chance. But of course I didn't. To quote that sister, sometimes, being a missionary is hard. But it is worth it. The little miracles make up for it time and time again. Other than that, my day was pretty good. We explored the area, looking for the home of a less active member, who we successfully found and spoke to a little bit. I hope we get to visit her again!

I'm proud of Maryandra for keeping her cool! 

You have to know Maryandra to appreciate this excerpt!

Well, we had a bit if an adventure, trying to find another less active member, and failed. We walked almost into Katakura, which is by the highway partly, and it was dark and scary the whole time, with no lamp posts or anything, on these roads that were barely wider than alleys, and we could see bats flying around.the wind kept blowing this little windmill really loud, but we couldn't feel it, so it made me think Halloween things. Do you remember that story in Anne of Green Gables, where Anne has to walk through what she named the Haunted Wood,and all of her imaginations came back to haunt her. It was kind of like that, at least for me, since I'm scared to death of the dark. Sometimes, the cat tail plants would make scary rustling noises, and the moving branches and creeper vines that moved always looked really creepy. Anyway, today was rather normal other than that, for a Sunday. Man, I am way tired, and I cannot wait for pday tomorrow!

Finally, we will end on an exciting excerpt!

Guess what just happened less than a minute ago? Another earthquake! Seriously, these things are happening more and more! That's the second one in two weeks! None of them have been more than enough to startle me, but they still startle me, if that makes sense. Let's see what else happens today...

She is enthusiastically hanging in there, and they have a baptism scheduled for June!!!

Maryandra's letter was full of news this week!  They did move the sisters in Hachioji to a bigger apartment, which made Maryandra happy!  In her own words:
We moved apartments!!! I LOOOOOOOOVVVVVVE IIIIIIIIIT!! It's sooooooo much bigger than our first apartment, which was cramped and stuffy, even though it was new. We have several rooms, and I finally feel like I can breathe here! And we are up on the third floor in the building, which, even though it's a bit of a climb, means that we have an amaaaaazinnnng view from all sides! And a small veranda! It's the best!

And this is what she had to say about transfers:
TRANSFER CALLS CAME JUST TODAY!!! Get ready to hear it. I am going to...... ( drumroll please) ......... STAY IN HACHIOJI!!!!! Funakura and brown Shimai are also staying in Hachioji! Funakura Shimai and I are going to become a companionship, and brown Shimai is, once again, training a brand new missionary. So,we are becoming a foursome!! YAY!!! I am kind of scared to be a senior companion, because Funakura works way harder than I do, and I don't know how to lead by inspiration, or any of that other stuff I'll need, so it's actually really scary. But I'm way glad that things are going to turn out this way, actually. At least I'm not leaving, and at least I'm not training a newbie.

On Saturday Maryandra also got to climb Mount Jinbo with investigators and other missionaries, which was fun, but here is something from her letter about a different experience:
Oh, so guess what happened just this morning? My second earthquake! It was quite a bit bigger than the first one, and considerably longer. I heard it was a four on the rector scale, but I don't really know what it means. All I know is that I woke up at about 5 this morning, because the ground was moving underneath me. As soon as I opened my eyes, I freaked out inside my head, and sat bolt upright. Brown Shimai was already at the top futon room door, and she and I just tensed and stood there for About 20 seconds as the floor entry rocked back and forth a little. But it was way scarier in the moment! And brown Shimai said that it was he biggest one shed ever felt, which is kind of scary. She says that they are getting bigger and more frequent. That's probably the reason why president Wada is pushing us all to get our 72 hour kits ready. I'm a little bit nervous about that, but it's okay for now. Nothing really happened, and no one got anything more than a little startled. But Funakura Shimai just sat on her futon the whole time. When we told the elders about it, they mostly said that they just stayed in bed and didn't do anything, like, if the roof falls on me, I'm too tired to worry about it kind of a thing. They're so silly!

We are thankful that Maryandra is doing well, and surviving all of her exciting experiences so far!!!